Home, flying, ahead

I got home about 7:30 last night. The drive home from the airport was close to two hours with the heavy traffic I encountered. It is always a pleasure to share the highway with thousands of travelers, most of whom I expect were also trying to get home. In transit from the airport via the roads Mama and I normally take, there is a definite point where the traffic lightens to the point that it always seems remarkable to me. That held true last night. I knew if I could get to that point, I could easily cruise home from there – barring the unexpected accident or other highway mishap. I was in no hurry other than the normal desire to get home, so I listened to talk radio and prayed for the two-hour commute. I needed the alone time after teaching and traveling, so it was not necessarily a hardship. It was more of an inconvenience.

All three flights I took this week were full. Two were full to the point that the airline was asking everyone who would to check their carry-on bags. Running out of overhead space to stow the luggage was a known issue before we even started boarding. I happily checked mine. Less hassle through the flights. On my first of two flights that would take me home, I was on a smaller plane with only two seats to a side. However, my row mate took the aisle and the middle armrests throughout the entire flight. I was at the window, so I made it work, but he never so much as offered to draw in even a little. Every time I bumped into his elbow, he tried to claim even more space. Which made it kind of fun. I spent the time reading a book on my phone and gently frustrating him.

On the longer flight from Charlotte, NC to DFW I was in the center seat of the row. The passenger to my left spoke no English, but was pleasant and quiet, and the one to my right – a recent Army recruit (one of about forty on the flight) – would not stop speaking English. Fortunately, we all three fit very comfortably in the row. Unfortunately, someone near us was passing gas every fifteen or twenty minutes for the entire two-hour flight. The smell was awful. The cabin air filtering system was working well, and the stink lasted only a couple minutes each time, but it was miserable for those two minutes. One of those circumstances that you hope will never happen. The constant mumbling of the recruit and the intermittent flatulence of a nearby passenger made it a memorable flight.

Tomorrow, I have a lot of catching up to do at the farm. Brittany Wycoff will be coming over in the afternoon to help me butcher the remaining four Rock Chickens. They each weigh at least eight pounds. One rooster is more than ten pounds. It will be nice to have them processed so we can clean out the birthing center. Mama is housing four puppies and a mama dog in the Chef’s Pantry for now. Not ideal, but workable. At the rate she is selling the puppies, we my not need to transfer them to the birthing center, but I want to get the chickens processed and the building cleaned out anyway. The six chickens we raised in there have made a mess of it. I will be happy to see it sanitized and ready for future service.

I must take the time in the next few days to clean the pig building. We have the bucklings in the antechamber of the building, but we will need to move their sisters to that area to wean them from their respective mommies. That will require use of the entire building, not just the storage area in the front of the building. That clean out will require a lot of work. I have done just a little of the removal of the accumulated mud from our last set of pigs. That mud layer on the floor is about four inches thick. It does seem to come up in large chunks, but it will all need to be removed. Soon.

Next week is Christmas week. I am not at all in the Christmas spirit. It all seems anticlimactic. Thanksgiving was our big Holiday celebration. we are expecting Becky, Bridgette and Mike here on Christmas Eve Day. Other than that, it will be me, Mama and Victoria Christmas morning. Alex invited us over for dinner Christmas day. We gladly accepted, but it will eliminate the need to fix a special Christmas dinner. Another reason it does not really seem like Christmas. Oh, well. We will have to make that dinner for Becky and Mike.  

We will have a bit more of Christmas when we travel to Honduras in February.